Daily guide · DE-LU · 2026-08-22

Negative-price watch Germany-Luxembourg: this week's floor, and what's ahead

All numbers computed from the week's published auction results at publication and frozen — this article is an honest snapshot, not a page that rewrites itself. Reproduce via the API.

This week produced no negative hours in the Germany-Luxembourg bidding zone, a notable pause given the pace set earlier in the year. The floor landed at 1,01 EUR/MWh on 15 August at hour 13, a midday reading consistent with strong solar output but one that stopped short of turning prices negative. Only three hours fell below 10 EUR/MWh across the week, and our modelled probability of a negative print peaked at just 0,45 over the seven-day horizon.

For readers positioned around solar-heavy midday windows, the message is that downside pressure remains present but contained. Prices are compressing toward the floor without breaching it, which changes the calculus for curtailment and storage dispatch decisions relative to weeks when negative settlement is more likely.

The context worth holding onto: 3.630 negative periods year-to-date confirm this is a structural feature of the zone, not an anomaly. This week's clean floor is a lull rather than a reversal. The concrete takeaway is to treat the sub-10 EUR/MWh hours as the operational risk zone for now, while keeping negative-price contingencies ready for the next high-solar stretch.

When wind and solar produce more than a zone can consume or export, the day-ahead auction clears below zero — producers literally pay consumers to take power. Negative prices went from curiosity to structural feature across Europe, and for anyone with flexible load or storage they're the most interesting hours of the year. Here's where DE-LU stands.

1.01

this week's floor (€/MWh), 2026-08-15 at 13:00 local

0 / 3

hours below €0 / below €10 this week

3,630

negative delivery periods in 2026 so far (DE-LU)

The forward view

Our negative-price risk model (Brier-scored daily against climatology — record on /accuracy) currently puts the peak probability of a sub-zero period in DE-LU over the next 7 days at 45%. That number updates daily via GET /v1/risk/negative/DE-LU — a 14-day calendar of per-15-minute probabilities.

Never miss one again

The useful pattern isn't watching a dashboard — it's a webhook that fires when tomorrow's auction clears negative anywhere in your zone: 

curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"event": "negative_prices", "zone": "DE-LU", "url": "https://your-app/hook"}' \
  https://voltcast.com/api/v1/webhooks

It delivers seconds after the 13:00 CET publication, HMAC-signed. Journalists and analysts: the live DE-LU tracker has the all-time records, monthly history and a CSV download — free to cite with attribution. For the systematic view (which hours, which seasons, how deep), the full 2015+ archive is one bulk export away.

Live DE-LU prices → All daily guides → Start with Home →

Method & citation. Prices are hourly means of published day-ahead auction results (native 15-minute periods averaged; ENTSO-E/SMARD, attributed). Wholesale-price component only — grid fees and taxes come on top and vary by supplier. Cite as "Voltcast Research, voltcast.com/guides/negative-watch-de-lu-2026-08-22".

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